In recent years, many companies have introduced devices that accept voice commands and take actions based upon those voice commands. Some such devices operate on smart phone, but lately, many companies are producing what is known a digital assistants which are typically stand-alone, smart speaker devices that are connected to a network (e.g. the Internet), listen for voice commands, and act on those voice commands through the network. Often, such devices utilize a keyword to initiate action. For example, one device from Amazon® is Alexa®. In order to issue a command to this device, the user must first say the keyword, “Alexa”, or other optional Wake words, followed by the command. For example, “Alexa, what is the weather in Aruba today?” This keyword is important so the digital assistant does not overhear normal conversation and act on what is heard. For example, if you were on the phone and said, “did you turn off the lights,” without this keyword, the digital assistant might just turn off the lights in your house. There are many uses for these digital assistants such as, reading/answering email or texts, operating connected appliances within the home, controlling the playing of music, looking up information/trivia, etc.
Unrelated to these digital assistants are medical emergencies, predicaments, or medical alerts. Many people of all ages, though concentrated on those in their golden years, run into situations in which they need help, for example, after a fall, getting stuck in a home elevator, or the onslaught of a serious medical condition such as a stroke or heart attack. If another person is in the same home or nearby, the person having the medical emergency or other hazard can shout to get that person's attention, but what about those who are alone, perhaps because others that live with them are out of the home, or they live alone. Shouting will not solicit help.
A medical alarm is an alarm system designed to signal the presence of such an event that requires urgent attention and, if needed, to summon emergency medical personnel. Other terms for a medical alarm are Personal Emergency Response System (“PERS”) or medical alert. Elderly people and disabled people who live alone commonly use/require medical alarms.
Typical medical alarm systems in use today have a wireless pendant or transmitter that is activated after an event has occurred. When the transmitter is activated, a signal is transmitted and relayed to an alarm monitoring company's central station. The central station is staffed with trained personnel to assess the situation and contact other emergency agency or other programmed phone numbers. In some cases, personnel are dispatched to the site where the alarm was activated.
Such medical alarm systems work well when properly installed, when the batteries have sufficient charge and when the user remembers or agrees to wear them. However, since traditional medical alarm systems are, at least in part, user operated, there are problematic drawbacks. For example, if a user gets up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom without their device, and falls or becomes ill and cannot reach their emergency device, or telephone; then they cannot get the emergency help they need, rendering the medical alert useless. Often, users have complications during the night, when trying to reach the bathroom. Often such users are not in possession of their medical alert device.
Furthermore, such medical alarm systems rely on user operations that requires users to change their behavior, making current medical alarm systems inherently susceptible to users' personal limitations, proclivities, and flaws—putting reliance on the user to remember to recharge the battery and consistently wear a pendant, wrist band, panic button, or other device for the entire day and night. Some users, however, do not want to wear the alarm pendant or wrist band because of aesthetics and/or inconvenience and/or privacy, rendering the device useless when needed. Also, some users forget to don or wear the device and the device may not be within reach when they need it most. Additionally, some users forget to charge the device regularly and the device simply shuts down and ceases to operate until recharged. In fact, approximately 30% of all users of such devices cancel medical alert service annually, possibly due to the fact that they no longer wear or use the device, despite the fact that the user is still in need of a medical monitoring. In an independent research study, 83% of subscribers to medical alert services did not have their medical alert wearable device within reach in a slip and fall at home and resulted in five (5) minutes or longer stranded on the floor and unable to get up without assistance.
Additionally, as of this writing, both Amazon® Alexa® and Google Assistant® and other digital personal assistants (DPA) are not permitted to dial 911 by operating system programming. If a voice command is given to “Call for Police,” “Call for a Doctor,” “Call for an Ambulance,” fire or other emergency is given, those commands are blocked by the other digital personal assistant, by design. One of the issues with issuing calls directly to 911 is that greater than 90% of all issued alarms from electronic alarm systems in the United States are deemed false alarms. This is a significant problem in the industry, and thus, any types of digital personal assistants are currently disabled form making unverified calls to 911.
Privacy is also of the utmost importance. In the United States, there is a set of laws commonly called HIPAA, which stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. HIPAA provides for stiff penalties for offenses in which medical personnel divulge any private medical information regarding a patient. Therefore, anyone involved with providing any part of a medical alarm system must be thoroughly trained and monitored to treat any information confidentially, as release of any health-related information is a possible violation of the law related to HIPAA.
What is needed is a system that provides help to a user that is monitored by a private, commercial system and activated by voice command thereby not requiring a personal panic button or device of any type that has to be worn by the users. Further, the system for providing help needs to install easily, provide client privacy for Protected Medical Information (“PHI”), and alert medical staff should an emergency arise.